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User: ngm

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  1. Re:...stop the madness... French answer to Ghandi on Listening To The Radio At Work? Prepare To Be Sued · · Score: 1

    Similarly, here in Massachusetts, the state legislature recently passed a law requiring every resident to have health insurance. If you don't have health insurance, you will be fined an amount comparable to the lowest-price policy that's available. [...] This does have a strong resemblance to that French law requiring that everyone buy salt from the state monopoly.

    Except that there is no state monopoly.
  2. Re:$9.99 Albums will be 256kbps/DRM Free on Steve Jobs Announces (some) DRM-free iTunes · · Score: 1

    CDs are encoded losslessly, 256kb AAC isn't. That's the difference. I'll consider iTunes now that it's DRM free, but for music I really care about it'll be CDs until I can get it in a lossless format online.

  3. Re:Well amount of Energy != Green on Hummer Greener Than Prius? · · Score: 1

    Now excuse me while I go smash my bike lock into some Hummer's tail-light. Do it to my Hummer and I'll squish your 'green' head. Awesome... Hey how about we put you both in a locked room and you can have a throttling contest. Winner gets lethal injection.
  4. Re:Well amount of Energy != Green on Hummer Greener Than Prius? · · Score: 1

    Actually big power plants are more efficient than cars, thus produce a base level of less pollution per unit energy than a car. Plus most (in western countries anyway) have scrubbers and other pollution control devices which are totally impractical in a mobile platform (aka car) further lowering their pollution output. We also have to account for the percentage of the build energy that comes from renewable sources and that sources away from population centers effect us less (less people nearby and lower ppm). I could go on...

    So yes, it does matter how and where the pollution is being created.

  5. Re:Offtopic questions on Cheap, Safe, Patentless Cancer Drug Discovered · · Score: 1

    I wish I there was a plan when I could pay the doctor directly as long as I am healthy. Currently the HMO gets the profit if the client is not a patient. The doctor gets paid if there is a problem. Talk about conflicting interests. I am on a high deductable plan. Any preventive care is 100% free for me. It makes sense to see my doctor for a preventive checkup quite often, but does she get paid comparably for that as for seeing sick people?
    Actually there are doctor's offices that work like this. They, as an office, take the role of health insurer, you pay them a set fee plus co-pay, etc. and you get servce directly from them. These offices tend to be a lot more service oriented, you'll see a lot more of you doctor, some even do house calls. It's a growing trend as far as I know, but still quite rare.
  6. Re:Yes! on iPods Becoming Entrenched In Major League Baseball · · Score: 1

    You know you can replace that battery right? http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/ipod/batteryreplace ment/

  7. Re:Yet another pat on the wrist. on Cingular, Others Fined For Using Adware · · Score: 1

    Geez, you couldn't site an article that's not 27 years old?

  8. Re:Stop! Don't use LGPL software! on OpenMoko Schedule Announced · · Score: 1

    Wow... First off even in RMS's essay on why you shouldn't use the LGPL he grants that there are situations where using the LGPL is favored. I'd argue that the features provided by the OpenMoko project are "readily available for proprietary software" hence this software's case being of those situations.

    Second section 3 of the LGPL lets you re-release the source under the GPL, if you so desire. So if you only want to use GPL'd code, have at it, you're free to create your own GPL'd fork.

    Lastly not everyone agrees with RMS ideas on open source. Using the LGPL doesn't restrict your writing of open source programs (under whatever license you please) so really what's your complaint? You can't handle the competition from closed source (or BSD, Apache license) competitors?

  9. Re:flat out lie on 3D Printers To Build Houses · · Score: 1

    It hardly constitutes a screwing. It's, in some ways, more forgiving than the western system. If you can no longer afford payments there's no need for filing bankruptcy, you can simply move out to a lower rent house.

  10. mod parent informative! on Astronomers Spy 288bn Mile Booze Cloud · · Score: 1

    good info from an AC

  11. Re:OH FOR CRAP SAKE on Another Robotic Vehicle to Help Soldiers · · Score: 1

    Something tells me that the oppressed aren't likely to be able to afford robots to go after their oppressors, or at least not in the number that their oppressors can...

  12. Re:Mostly detonated remote. on Another Robotic Vehicle to Help Soldiers · · Score: 1
    As for explosives, I'm sure the Iraqis had a shitload left over from their stockpiles

    You mean like the ones we left unguarded after the invasion?
  13. Re:also, for further reference... on Texas to Provide Online 'Bordercams' · · Score: 1

    Murder and child molestation is illegal. Watching you through a web cam pointed at a public place is not.

    That's not an argument. Murder and child molestation are illegal because we made them so and we can just as well make pointing a web-cam at a public place illegal.
  14. Re:Doesn't work on New Apple Campaign Target PC Flaws · · Score: 1
    I sat on my G4 powerbook [...]

    It might work better if you didn't sit on your laptop, it's not really made for that.
  15. Re:Wow, that's cool, but... on Cockroaches Make Group Decisions? · · Score: 1
    This cockroach behavior is trivial by comparison. It's explained by the simplest of models: "Find a place to hide. Given a choice of places to hide, pick one with more cockroaches. if I don't fit in a place to hide, find somewhere else." The last rule is implicit in the first anyway so it's even simpler than I said. Ant, termite or bee behavior is a few orders of magnitude less trivial.


    Oh? Really!? Because I'm pretty sure that that algorithm would result in a 40/10/0 split, which if you RTFA isn't what they found...

    3 shelters, 50 cockroaches:
    shelter capacity 40, 25/25/0 split
    shelter capacity 50, 50/0/0 split
  16. Re:Quick fix? on Interview With Leader of Sweden's Pirate Party · · Score: 1

    Well aparently we only need one sympathizer to slip it into a omnibus bill at the last minute...

  17. Re:Before you make up your mind... on French Parliament Fights iPod and iTunes · · Score: 1

    Get a clue!

    You don't have to buy new crap to make your music work on your iPod, guess what it's an MP3 player, it plays MP3s...
    iTunes Music Store bought music is another matter, but you probably have to lay much on the blame for that on the studios as DRM is required by them to play the online music game.

    Oh, and turntables? You can still get those... so dig out those LPs and have fun!

    -n

  18. Re:Examine both sides of the coin on Gold Buying - Time Saver or Cheating? · · Score: 1

    This is akin to cheat codes in single-player games: put in a code for unlimited money, buy the big sword and Spell of Instantaneous Death, and go kill some baddies. We all play differently, so there's no reason to hate on those who don't have time, energy, or desire to play 24/7.

    Exactly like cheat codes! But, this is a multiplayer game and using cheat codes in a multiplayer game is cheating and not fair to the other players. If you want to use cheat codes and giggle while you splatter baddies with little or no challenge, be my guest, but do it in your own world in a single player game (or in a small multiplayer game where everyone agrees to their use). Buying gold is against the rules in WoW. If you don't like that, don't play, there are plenty of other good games out there in which you can cheat to your heart's content without screwing with anyone elses gaming experience.
  19. Re:So true... on Yahoo Exec Speaks Against DRM · · Score: 1

    So, it doesn't support every format under the sun, what's your point? You're still not getting screwed as it plays many DRM-free formats. Perhaps, you're refering to the fact that the MP3/4 formats have royalties assoiciated with them, however that's hardly getting screwed. It's not perfect and it may not be the device for you if you must use Ogg Vorbis (and yes I've heard of it) or other royalty-free format. You and I might like it if the iPod supported Ogg Vorbis, but it's such a marginal format at this point that there is hardly any demand for it.

    -n

  20. MOD PARENT UP on Florida Voting Machine Logs Reveal Anomalies · · Score: 1

    Thoughtful comments even if from an AC

  21. Re:So true... on Yahoo Exec Speaks Against DRM · · Score: 1

    I can't tell if you're trolling or simple misguided...
    Assuming the later, you're putting the blame in the wrong place. The iPod is merely a pretty slick bit of hardware for playing digital music. It supports AAC (16 to 320 Kbps), Protected AAC (from iTunes Music Store), MP3 (16 to 320 Kbps), MP3 VBR, Audible (formats 2, 3 and 4), Apple Lossless, WAV, and AIFF, so it has plenty of options to play non-DRM music. That it couldn't play DRM'd WMA isn't the fault of the iPod, but of the DRM on that file. Likewise CDs in general do not have any DRM (and even the kind the GP mentions is easy to get around), so it's not the fault of CDs either. So, buy an iPod and buy your CDs from responsible companies that make proper CDs and you'll have a happy time listening to your music without DRM on your iPod where ever you go.

    Oh, and BTW, if the RIAA said that you couldn't listen to their CDs unless you were wearing a sombrero, would you wear one and decry the makers of sombreros for ripping you off by forcing you to buy a hat? Or laugh, and tell the RIAA that they can't write law (yet)?

    -n

  22. Re:solidarity on New Nuclear Power Plants in the next 5 years · · Score: 1

    I moved to in a small town in NH for college and the improvement in my asthma was amazing. I could nearly go without medication. When I moved back to the Boston area it started getting noticeably worse again. It's still better than during my HS years but it's back to needing regular meds.

  23. Re:DRM is the antithesis of openness on Torvalds Explains Dislike For GPLv3 · · Score: 2, Insightful
    People who buy the content are unaffected; only pirates are the ones bitching because they are no longer able to freeload content without having to pay for it.

    Except that that's not true. People who buy the content are affected. We are being prevented from exercising our fair-use rights. Prior to CSS being broken I could not backup the DVDs that I had legally purchased, nor could I copy them to a hard disk in a media center computer so that might access them all through a menu rather that having to fetch the approprate DVD from it's case. Frankly, I'd prefer not to be wasting a whole lot of shelf space in my living room for storage of DRM'd media. I could go on about the ways in which I am affected both directly and indirectly, but the above is enough to illustrate the point.

    There's a war going on between content producers and the pirates and the people who buy are getting caught in the middle as the content producers treat everyone like a potential criminal.
  24. Re:Funny thing on Obesity Contagious? · · Score: 1

    Angelica's Kitchen is great! It's been a while since I've been there, glad to hear it's still there. It's 300 East 12th St, btw

    I think I'm going to have to go back now....

  25. Re:Well.... on Ars Technica Reviews Intel iMacs · · Score: 1

    And if MS Word ran twice as fast, what would I do get my papers done faster?